


The First of November

by PineconeTrinklebriar



Series: Nightlights [2]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Halloween, Healthy Relationships, M/M, Paranormal Investigators, Pumpkins, Roadtrip, Therapy, anniversary date
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:08:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27341722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PineconeTrinklebriar/pseuds/PineconeTrinklebriar
Summary: October is the busiest month for the Paranormal Security division of the Embassy. Your team just finished up a month of nightly patrols to protect the city from alliumedes. Luckily, Sans has some plans to help you unwind from your long month!
Relationships: Papyrus/Papyrus (Undertale), Reader/Sans (SwapFell), Sans/Sans (Undertale)
Series: Nightlights [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1994629
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13





	The First of November

**Author's Note:**

> A continuation of my paranormal security AU! You don't have to have read my Spooktober post to read this one, but it might help with some of the nuances :)
> 
> TW: brief mention of past unhealthy relationship

You groaned and wiped the black sludge off of your clothes, mentally regretting your choice to not wear your mage get up. Sure, it looked dumb as hell, but it was imbued with magic that kept it clean and fitting you for your whole life and the black sludge often left behind by alliumedes was hella difficult to get out of fabric. You mentally resigned yourself to needing new jeans and leaned against the cool brick wall in the alley. “Okay, I took care of the werewolf,” you said into your earpiece. “How’re the boys?”

“Spector-tacularly good,” Stretch said, and you offered him a half-hearted chuckle for the pun. “Sans took care of his vengeful spirit and Mutt fought off the vampire.”

“Fantastic. How long until dawn?”

“Only 38 minutes. You should be done for the night honestly,” Stretch said.

You sighed with both relief and general soreness and continued to lean on the wall. It’d been a long week. Well, month, really. Halloween always brought out all kinds of summoners, alliumedes, and general creeps to terrorize the townsfolk. For centuries, it was all blamed on devils and witches, but now that monsters resurfaced, there was a whole species of scapegoats for weird Halloween hijinks. Your team spent the month trying to subvert those threats before they ever happened, to nobly save lives, sure, but also to keep PR crises at the Embassy to a minimum. It meant a whole month of very little time to do anything except work, work, and maybe a little more work. Your boyfriend was the head of the Paranormal Security for the Embassy (and low-key the third-in-command over the whole damn place) so he practically lived at the office for the whole month, while you and Mutt took on spooks day and night. You even enlisted help from other members of the security team when it got to be too much.

So the knowledge that Halloween was ending in 38 minutes and you would be able to get some damn sleep, eat some decent food, and spend some time with your favorite skeleton was very, very welcome.

You heard the soft pop of teleportation and looked up to see the man himself standing in front of you. The lucky bitch had the nerve to not even have a drop of sweat on his forehead or a speck of dirt on his dark jeans and hoodie. He stepped forward with his arms out like he was going to hug you, but you held up a hand.

“Don’t hug me right now,” you said and, wow, he must be tired because it took him a full second to shift his expression back to ‘Sans, neutral’ from ‘Sans, hurt’. “I’m gross, babe,” you clarified quickly. “Shower first, then cuddles.”

His mouth twitched into a small grin and he resumed walking towards you. “You are quite gross,” he agreed and snickered at your sound of outrage, “but I would like to hug you anyway.”

“Fine, if you want to ruin your mission clothes that’s on you.”

“My cheap black hoodie and inexpensive jeans? Oh no, whatever shall I do?” You allowed him to pull you into his arms and snuggled against him just a little bit. He planted a kiss on the top of your head. “I’ve missed you, my dear,” he said softly.

“Me too. But about you.”

“Oh!” you said, startling him as you pulled back. “Happy anniver--”

“Shush!” he said, actually going so far as to cover your mouth with his hand. “Not yet!”

You licked his palm to get him to pull it away, then said, “Sorry? When, then?”

“Not yet,” he repeated. You shrugged and let him pull you back into the hug, though you eyed him suspiciously the whole time. “Since we only have… 26 minutes left on duty, would you allow me to teleport you somewhere?”

“You want to go to bed early?” you asked, unable to keep the surprise from your voice. Sans wasn’t exactly known for playing hooky or taking it easy.

“Sadly, no. But there is something I would like to show you.”

“Okay, but I would like to state for the record that I am not having sex with you while Stretch is on comms,” you said, just to watch the embarrassed blush and indignant expression that crossed Sans’s face.

“I! Would never!”

Stretch laughed over the comms channel. “I could get the edgelord and we could make it a whole party,” he leered.

“‘M here too,” Mutt said over the comms, “an’ I would prefer to keep pretendin’ my bro doesn’t even know about sex, thanks.”

You and Sans both objected to that at the same time. “We’ve been dating for  _ three years _ , Mutt,” you said as Sans stammered, “I’m your older brother. I gave  _ you _ the moldsmalls and whimsums talk, remember?”

“Sorry, I can’ hear you over the sound of my pukin’,” Mutt said.

“At any rate,” Sans finally said over all of the laughing, “that is _not_ related to what I wanted to show you.”

“Spoilsport,” you said, but let him pull you into the void anyway.

When you stepped out you realized immediately that you were up on Mount Ebbott. You were standing a safe distance back from the edge of a cliff that overlooked the large forest. There would have been a beautiful view of the stars if there were any in the night sky. The sky was beginning to lighten ever so slightly anyway, the tendrils of dawn beginning to appear in the sky.

“I thought we could watch the sunrise together,” Sans said.

You pressed a kiss to his cheekbone and said, “I love that journey for us.”

He rolled his eye lights at the quote from one of your favorite TV shows, but reached into his inventory and pulled out a couple of blankets. He arranged one on the ground and, after tugging you down to sit on the blanket, he wrapped a second one around your shoulders. It felt nice against the morning chill, but you immediately knew what would feel nicer. You took the blanket off and draped it around Sans’s shoulders. Before he could object, you crawled into his lap and tucked the blanket around both of you, snuggling against his chest for warmth. He wrapped his arms around you and nuzzled a kiss to your neck.

You sat together quietly as the sky changed from deep blue to light blue to purples and pinks. Slowly, the sun rose above the treeline, allowing light to dance through the mist that had gathered during the night. When the sun finally made its way high enough in the sky that watching it was no longer interesting, you stirred against Sans. “Hey, babe. Happy--”

“Still not yet,” he said, sleepiness heavy in his voice.

“Oookay… then should we go home?” you asked him.

“Well actually,” he said slowly, “I planned a little something of an outing for us today if you are amenable.”

You had to look away from your too-observant boyfriend to hide a bit of a frown. On one hand, your boyfriend had a plan, hell yeah, and you were very much interested in whatever that plan included. You missed him and, in the midst of his busy schedule this month, he’d found the time to plan a date for you the second that your schedules were free. Plust, it was your anniversary! It was so touching that you wanted to cry, honestly. But on the other hand, you’d been up all night, for nearly three days straight in fact, and you were honest-to-the-gods exhausted. Unless whatever he had planned involved a generous nap, you weren’t sure you’d be able to survive it.

No. This was something special, something Sans wanted to do. You could sleep later.

When you turned back to him to agree, he was wearing a grin that told you he’d followed your train of thought all the way to the station. You felt awful immediately; you loved your baby’s plans and should’ve been immediately excited. “Babe, I--”

He shushed you. “I can sweeten the pot by telling you that you are in for a drive-thru breakfast and then an approximately four-hour nap before we get where we are going.”

You blinked at him. “Wait, you built-in a nap?”

“What else are car rides for?” he asked.

“But you’re tired too!” you complained. “You can’t drive that far this tired. Especially without someone to keep you awake. We can at least split it!”

Sans laughed. “Actually, we are both going to sleep. You and I get the back seat so we can even snuggle a bit.”

“How could I say no to that?” you asked, with a huge grin on your face.

The two of you packed up the blankets, then Sans caught your hand and pulled you into the void again. This time, you stepped out in front of the ranger station at the bottom of the mountain. Comic and Red were leaning against Sans’s Tesla, which was parked in front of the station. “Well, lookie here,” Red said with a grin. “Looks like our little car buds’re finally ready ta go.”

“Not quite,” Sans said and strode forward to pop the trunk. He pulled out what you recognized as your overnight bag and brought it over to you. “I thought we may want to change after our evening,” he explained, fishing his own overnight bag out of the back.

“Good call,” Red said. “Y’all smell like rotten death.”

“Aw, Red, you charmer,” you said with a grin. “But you two weren’t out with security last night?”

“Nope,” Comic said, popping the ‘p’. “Your boy had this planned for a while so he had us way down on the ol’ emergency call list. We got a full night’s sleep.”

“Well,” Red said, elbowing Comic, “maybe not a _full_ night.”

Comic’s face didn’t even change from his serene grin as he stepped on Red’s foot. Red cursed at him, but both of them were smiling.

“We’re going to go change,” Sans said, taking your hand. “Please try to keep out of each other’s pants while we’re gone.”

“We’ll try, but no promises,” Red said.

Comic stepped on his foot again. “Promises,” Sans corrected. “We’ll behave.”

The two of you parted ways into separate bathrooms in the station, despite Sans’s suggestion that maybe you didn’t have to, no one else was here after all. You turned him down because if Red and Comic were going to behave, you sure as hell were too, no matter how much you thought that separate bathrooms sounded like misery.

You discovered that Sans packed you an article of clothing you hadn’t seen before. It was a cute little skater dress, a deep purple like his magic, covered in fluffy black cats. It fit perfectly and comfortably--not a surprise; your skeleton was stupid observant and would of course find you a flattering and comfortable dress--and looked great over the black thermal leggings and converses he’d also packed for you. You threw your favorite leather jacket over it and assessed yourself in the mirror. You noticed that he packed a washcloth in case you needed to clean up (which you did with joy) but no makeup or hair styling products. You frowned as you observed your smudged makeup and mussed hair.

There was a soft knock on the door behind you. “Are you decent, my dear?”

“Yeah,” you said, reaching over and unlocking the door.

He slipped in and you grinned to see that he was wearing a purple button-up with a black tie with a little cat down at the bottom. “We match,” you observed.

“I wanted everyone to know who you were with,” he admitted. “Is it… Is it okay? If not, we can go home and change first.”

“I absolutely love it,” you said honestly, “but I wish you had packed me some stuff to do something about this.” You gestured to your face and hair.

He shook his head and you realized that this was why he came in. “I don’t know what you wish you could do, but I assure you that you look absolutely gorgeous just like that.”

You snorted. “You’re tired and haven’t seen me all month. I’m a disaster right now.”

“Beautiful,” he insisted, pulling you into his arms and kissing your cheeks, then forehead, then mouth. You kissed him back, a warm fuzzy feeling building in your chest. “Fine,” you said softly after a little bit. “Darn you and your kisses.”

He laughed and took your hand, leading you out to the car. Comic and Red were already in the car, but Red rolled down the window and whistled at the two of you low. “Y’all clean up real nice,” he said as you climbed into the back seat.

“Not you, Black,” Comic corrected. “We all have the same mug and I can’t believe ya snagged that beauty up. Had to settle for this guy,” he said with a sharp elbow to Red’s ribs.

“Har dee har har,” Red said good-naturedly.

“Aw, don’t be so hard on yourselves,” you said. “I mean, the universes definitely conspired to make sure neither of you were as fine as my baby, but your faces are acceptably close. If you squint.”

Everyone in the car laughed at the solid insult, then Red eased the car out of the parking lot and towards the interstate. 

“Where’re we going?” you asked.

“‘S a surprise,” Comic said. “Go to sleep.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” you said, snuggling down into the seat with Sans, the two of you wrapped together comfortably uncomfortable in the too-small, just-big-enough seat.

***

You woke to someone saying your name. You were sore and a bit uncomfortable, but you were also nice and snug. You blinked and looked around blearily, slowly remembering that you were in a car. Red was pulling into the parking lot of a Waffle House and Sans was shaking you gently. You sat up and then looked over at your boyfriend, who was smiling at you like you were the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. Sap.

You yawned and stretched. “Where’re we?”

“Waffle House,” Red said.

“I see that but where--”

“I’m starvin’!” Comic said over you. “Let’s get some eats.” You rolled your eyes as the two of them ported out of the car, but you rolled over and let Sans lead you out his door.

Inside, you felt the eyes of every single person in the room swivel to look at you. There weren’t a lot of humans in the restaurant; apparently, they let you sleep quite a while before stopping for eats. There were only a few humans sitting at the counter, each with mugs of coffee at their elbows and several empty packs of sugar speaking to how long they’d been there. You crossed your arms and looked each of them in the eye, daring them to say something to you or your skeletons. Going outside of Ebbott was always a risk, one that most monsters weren’t even allowed to attempt. Being the Third In Command of the Embassy (and the Former Captain of the Fucking Royal Guard) granted you some special permissions you supposed, because your little group was allowed to leave the city seemingly whenever they wanted. The problem was that most humans outside Ebbott hadn’t seen monsters in person yet and skeletons could be a difficult introduction to the species for them. You encountered several racist assholes on your many trips for work and you weren’t about to tolerate it for a second in this goddamn Waffle House.

Wisely, no one said anything as the four of you slid into a booth and scanned the laminated menus in front of you. The waitress, an older woman with her hair in a tight bun, approached your table with a pot of coffee. “Can I get y’all some coffee?” she asked, her accent clearly indicating that she was from the South.

“That would be wonderful. Thank you,” Sans said with a smile. The rest of you agreed to coffee as well and the woman set some questionably clean white mugs in front of you. Sans produced a hot chocolate packet from his inventory and passed it to you.

“Aw, thanks babe!” you cooed, pouring it into your mug.

“I’ll never understand how ya can drink that stuff,” Comic muttered into his mug. “Too sweet.”

You shrugged. “Black coffee tastes like hot urine.”

“You gotta tell us how ya know that,” Red said with a grin.

“I know how urine smells and how black coffee tastes,” you said with a shrug.

“Nah, that ain’t it. Spill your secrets.”

“You first.”

Red narrowed his sockets at you but eventually gave up when the waitress came back to request your order. Your table ended up ordering practically the whole stock of meat available in the little restaurant, though your contributions were minimal. You asked for a ham and cheese omelet so you were not about to be blamed for the sudden meat shortage in the area.

The meal was delicious and the company was even better. Red and Comic relayed a story about their first few weeks on the surface when they grossly misunderstood the purpose of both toilets and toilet paper that resulted in some furious Papyruses. You couldn’t have said if it was the sleep deprivation or the actual humor, but you hadn’t laughed so hard in a long time. 

Sans was in the middle of a story about the time he had to pay for one of those checkout machines at a local store when it spoke to him for the first time. “There were a lot of bullets flying in those days,” he mused. “Fresh from SwapFell, newly on the surface, certainly no idea that humans had talking machines like that. I may have, ahem, overreacted.”

“The edgelord had to bail ‘im out of jail,” Comic said with a grin.

Before you could register that you didn’t like that one bit, your train of thought was interrupted by the waitress returning with your check. Sans picked it up--you gave Red and Comic a little side-eye for not even trying for it, but it was pretty impotent, based on the fact that you yourself didn’t try to pick it up either--and blinked at it in surprise.

“What’s up?” you asked.

“It’s… Ma’am, excuse me!” Sans called to the waitress, who walked back over.

“Problem, hun?” she asked.

“No. Well, yes, it seems that you brought us the receipt as if the check has been paid, but we have not paid yet.”

“Oh that,” she said, her face not cracking into even a hint of a smile. “Well, sugar, you’re the first monsters we’ve ever had in here. Earl wanted to treat ya.” She gestured to one of the men at the counter who was pointedly not looking at your group.

“Why?” Red asked, his voice laced with frankly a rude amount of suspicion.

She laughed. “After what all y’all’ve been through, you deserve it. I head ‘bout those protesters outside your Embassy with those terrible signs. We all did. And there ain’t much we can do about it out here in the sticks, but we can make sure ya’re fed well while ya’re here.” She leaned forward and put a hand on Red’s shoulder. You were pretty sure the only reason he didn’t automatically tear her throat out was that Comic was holding his hand tightly. “We’re glad y’all are out from under that mountain, and we’re sorry ya were ever there to begin with. Right boys?” she called over her shoulder. You received a smattering of agreement from the rest of the restaurant and, in return, they were treated to three different colors of blushes from your skeletons.

“Thank you, ma’am,” you told her, voice full of feeling.

“Of course. Have a safe trip,” she said before giving Red’s shoulder a final squeeze and moving away.

“Well… That! Was. That was something!” Sans managed beside you.

“Huh. Sometimes humans don’t suck,” you said softly. Then, louder so the restaurant could hear you. “Thanks, everybody.” Then, you prodded Sans so that he crawled out of the booth. The rest of you followed suit and made your way back to the car. The next few minutes of the trip was spent in contemplative silence before you finally fell asleep curled up against Sans in the backseat.

***

The sun was significantly higher overhead the next time you woke up. You sat up and looked around, only to realize that Red had pulled up to a nice-ish hotel. “Sans?” you murmured.

“Yeah?” two sleepy voices answered simultaneously.

“The one I call Sans is fine,” you said, and Comic made a soft sound of acknowledgment from the front seat. “Where’re we?”

“Hotel,” he said, his voice still sleep heavy.

“Why though?”

“Rest of the date can’t happen until dark,” he said.

You opted to not ask any more questions and instead clambered out of the car. Sans made a soft protesting noise when you pulled away from him, but he didn’t stop you. The hotel was pretty typical fare, maybe just a touch nicer than you would normally spring for; practically slumming it for Sans. You pushed into the lobby and found Red talking to a tall man at the help desk. You trotted up to him and leaned against the counter beside him.

“Your rooms are 409 and 415,” the human explained, his voice deep enough to rival even Sans.

“Thanks. An’ which one’s the sweetheart special?” Red’s whole face turned red when he said it.

“415,” the man said.

“Thanks,” Red muttered, then grabbed the key cards and passed one of the envelopes over to you. “Ya boyfriend's a bonehead,” Red muttered to you as you walked back through the lobby. “I don’ know how he was able to take himself serious long enough to request that room. I’d of rather drove an icepick into my soul.”

“Sans got us the sweetheart special?”

Red snorted. “Ya think I got it for _my_ Sans? Nah, we aren’ really into all that fancy shit.”

“What are we doing tonight after it gets dark?” you asked, keeping your voice nonchalant.

“Your interrogation technique needs some work if ya think that’s gonna break me,” he said. “Come on; let’s get our boys inside.”

When you approached the car, you saw that both skeletons were nestled up in their seats sound asleep. Once you and Red both took your fair share of cute sleeping pics of them, Red set off the car alarm. Both of them shot out of their seats and banged their skulls on the ceiling of the car before catching sight of the two of you doubled over in laughter. You got to have the unique experience of seeing incoming murder on two faces that were so similar but yet so different from one another.

“Very funny,” Sans said, snatching the keys from Red after teleporting out of the car.

“You’re gonna pay for that,” Comic said darkly.

Red’s eye lights flashed and he said, “Don’ make promises ya can’t keep, sweetheart.”

“Gross! Go to your room!” you said, pushing them both towards the lobby. They took the hint and headed inside, but not before Red twined his fingers with Comic’s. You felt your soul trill a little bit at the image of the rugged, outwardly crass Red holding his sweetheart’s hand.

Speaking of sweethearts, yours was pulling you in for a kiss before you even had time to react. It was a little more thorough than you would have preferred in the public parking lot, but it was also awesome so you didn’t stop him. When he eventually pulled back, he grinned at you. “Let’s get inside,” he said, his voice almost a purr.

He led you up to room 415. It was lovely, and you quickly discovered that there was a huge jacuzzi tub in the bathroom when you used it, so you honestly expected to get up to some shenanigans with your boyfriend while you waited to see what happened at dark. Sure, you were tired, but you missed him and you didn’t want to sleep off the chance to be with him, not when he planned this whole thing, so you splashed some water on your face to wake you up and sashayed your way out of the bathroom. 

Sans was already spread out on the bed and wearing a pair of fancy PJs. His grin fell a little and then he said, “Oh! I forgot to tell you that I put some pajamas in your bag.”

“Do I need them?” you purred, forcing the tired out of your voice.

He grinned at you. “You can sleep however you want, love.”

“Sleep?”

“Yes. Sleep. We’ve been up for multiple days in a row. You’re going to sleep.”

You shifted uncomfortably. “But the sweetheart suite.”

“Will still be here after you’ve had some sleep.” He teleported so that he was standing in front of you and took your hands. “Are you truly not tired?”

You pointedly didn’t look at your beloved mind reader. “Um… Well, a little,” you admit. “But you did all this!”

His face shifted to something softer. “I did this because I love you and I missed you, not to make you _do_ anything. You never _owe_ me sex, love. Never.”

It was a true testament to how tired you were that those words made tears prick at the corner of your eyes. Of  _ course _ you knew that about him, that he would  _ never _ feel like you owed him that because he took you on a beautiful, thoughtful date. He wasn’t your piece of shit ex. 

He made a tutting noise and pulled you into his arms. He held you for a minute, then pushed you off towards the bathroom to change. And probably to give you a minute to collect yourself, but hey, you didn’t have to admit that to anyone. When you came back out in some fuzzy narwhal pants, he welcomed you into the bed and pulled you against him. You snuggled against his chest, amazed at how safe and loved you felt, even after all of this time.

***

You woke up not totally comfortable. Somehow you managed to rumple all of your blankets and rip one corner of the fitted sheet off of the mattress. You were all tangled up and stretched out across the whole bed totally alone. You heard the shower running so it was a pretty safe guess as to where Sans was. You managed to extract yourself from the blankets and staggered to the bathroom to see what trouble you could get up to.

You were distracted for a while there, you’d be the first to admit, but the two of you managed to get dressed back in your date clothes and your hair looked… good enough. The sun was just setting when Sans led you out of the lobby and towards the Tesla.

“What about Red and Comic?” you asked.

“They, ahem, made it clear that they didn’t want to leave the hotel room until it was time to return home tomorrow.”

You giggled. “Gross, though.”

“Gross,” he agreed.

“So where’re we going?”

“You’re going to find out soon. Just enjoy the secret!”

“You hate secrets, babe.”

Sans chuckled. “This is a nice secret.” You elected to allow that in favor of getting where you were trying to get to instead of arguing in a parking lot for any longer.

Sans left the top down for your drive. He draped the fluffy blanket around you so that you didn’t get too cold, but the temperature was still fairly warm for November. He drove you through a city (you still hadn’t bothered to figure out where you actually were) and you spent the ride admiring the lights. Ebbott wasn’t what you could call a large city and you missed the twinkling lights of skyscrapers, piercing the night like a very different kind of star. You glanced over at Sans and tried to imagine taking him to any of the major cities of the world--you’d love to get back to New York or London--but you also knew he’d probably have a breakdown about the sheer number of people with unknown intentions surrounding you. He barely handled just walking around Ebbott.

There was time. You didn’t need to do anything right now.

The drive was shorter than you expected. He pulled into a park and guided the Tesla down a bumpy gravel road. You waited until he pulled it into a parking spot before you asked again. “Okay, I still don’t know where we are.”

He smirked at you. “You mentioned wishing that you could attend the Pumpkin Festival.”

Yeah, you had. It was a festival a few hours from Ebbott with all kinds of pumpkin goodies, a pumpkin princess, and your personal favorite, an insane number of jack-o-lanterns. The festival only lasted the week before Halloween, your team’s busiest time of the year, and you lamented not being able to go this year like you had in the past. But, “This isn’t the Pumpkin Festival,” you felt obligated to point out.

“No,” he agreed as he opened your car door for you, “but this is an acceptable alternative.”

“How so?”

He put his arm around your shoulders and directed you to a little park path. The two of you walked a little way before he answered your question. “It doesn’t have all of the treats or rides, but it does have your favorite part. This is the Jack-O-Lantern Haunt, the largest display of Jack-O-Lanterns in the United States.”

He guided you around a corner and you gasped. There were so many pumpkins; there had to be thousands of them! The first set was near a sign with a display that declared them “Farm Time” pumpkins, with a large plywood cutout of a barn behind them and lighting that suddenly flickered on and changed in time with the music that also just turned on. The pumpkins themselves were incredible too; so many of them were carved to look like animals, with funny faces to match, but there were several in the foreground that were so delicately cut that you would have bet money they were drawn on instead. You approached the first one--an adorable scene with chickens that you immediately took a picture of for Stretch--and realized that no, it was in fact carved, and you had to force back the temptation to touch it.

Sans must have noticed because he began chuckling behind you. “You can touch it,” he assured you.

“What’s this now?” you asked.

“They closed yesterday. The pumpkins are all going to a farm rescue tomorrow to feed the animals. You are allowed to touch it.”

You immediately ran a hand down the front of the pumpkin and squealed in delight at the feeling of the picture. “It’s really carved!” you squeaked, grabbing Sans’s hand and pulling it to the pumpkin. He indulged you and touched it.

“It really does put our family’s carvings to shame,” he mused.

You laughed. You, Sans, and Mutt didn’t personally have time to carve any pumpkins, but the rest of the family did. The image of those poor, tortured pumpkins compared to these works of art made you double over in laughter as Sans led you down the path.

Turns out, each section had a theme. There was a Disney section that you carefully documented for Jupiter, Papyrus, and Blue. There was a music legends section that Edge would’ve loved. There was a rainforest section with pumpkins carved to look like various animals. The image of a series of pumpkins as a huge python was going to stick with you for a while. There was a circus section with a creepy clown thing that you had to walk through. You could see that there was a working pumpkin Ferris wheel inside and that was cool, but Sans agreed to walk through (taking a generous amount of pictures to send to Stretch) then teleport back for you. You and your therapist both decided that it was fine to not deal with your clown-related trauma head on this Halloween season and you weren’t about to apologize for it. Sans, for his part, didn’t ask you to. He actually seemed pretty taken with the idea of being your knight in a purple button-up and was pretty grand about the whole gesture.

The last section was called In Memorandum and featured pumpkins carved in the likeness of celebrities that passed away during the previous year. You solemnly took a couple of pictures for the boys; there were an important scientist and a monster advocate that you knew they would want pictures of. 

At the end of the trail, there was a little stand with a human at it. Sans smiled at the woman. “Thank you, Cheryl, this has been lovely.”

Cheryl looked at you, her plump cheeks flushed beautifully in the chilly air. “Is this the lucky lady?”

“I like to think I’m the lucky monster,” Sans said and Cheryl laughed.

“It is lovely to meet you. Sans hasn’t stopped talking about you since we met,” she said, extending her hand.

“Cheryl is in charge of this whole set up,” Sans told you. “I reached out to her to ask if it were possible to keep the place open an extra night and she was so kind as to make that happen.”

“Wow. Thank you so much,” you said.

“Don’t mention it, dear. Any lover of jack-o-lanterns is a friend of mine.” She held out a cup to you. “Coffee with hot chocolate for you,” she said, and you took it while throwing a knowing glance at Sans, “and black coffee for you,” she finished, handing Sans another cup.

You watched your captain of the royal guard sniff his coffee lightly before taking a sip. You waited patiently for him to smile and say, “This is lovely. Thank you,” before taking a sip of yours. You were pretty damn confident that Cheryl wasn't trying to poison you, but you knew that it made Sans feel better for him to confirm that before you drank it. And after all of this, he deserved to feel as comfortable as possible.

“Don’t let me keep you,” Cheryl said. “You kids have fun!”

“Have fun?” you asked.

Sans grinned. “We aren’t quite done.”

Sans led you around a corner and you discovered that there was one more section. The last section was called Lover’s Lane and was full of sickeningly lovey-dovey pumpkins. You loved it and from the way Sans tightened his arm on your shoulder, you were pretty confident he did too. He once confessed to you that he loved Valentine’s Day. He understood that it was just a tragic creation of the greeting card companies, but he absolutely loved everything about it, from the stupid little cards to the candies to the concept of going over-the-top for someone you love. He also quietly admitted that the idea of letting another see your soul was very romantic to him, though neither of you was quite ready for that. The heart drawings all looked like souls and he was romanced by the whole idea.

The two of you took that section a good deal slower. You paused to sip coffee and hold hands. You shared a few coffee-laced kisses that made your toes curl in joy. By the time you were done, Sans was nuzzling your neck a little bit, clearly overcome by the romantic atmosphere. There was a bench at the end that the two of you took advantage of, curling up together to finish the dregs of your coffee. From there, you could see the soft glowing lights throughout the whole forest, another kind of star that you secreted away in your heart to keep you warm on cold nights. It was breathtaking, made even better by the fact that Sans took time out of his horribly busy schedule to plan all of this, from getting the hotel and Comic and Red to drive, to somehow convincing an entire park to open an extra night just for the two of you.

For _you_. Sans did all of that for _you_.

“Hey,” you said softly to him. He stopped nuzzling your neck and looked up at you, eye lights shaped like little hearts. You didn’t mention it; he would definitely be embarrassed, even if it was the cutest shit you had ever seen.

“Yes, love?” he asked.

“Admit it.”

“Admit…?”

“You like me,” you said loftily. “You like-like me. Like a lot.”

Sans laughed. “I’ll take the secret to my grave.”

“You can’t fool anyone now. You’re secret’s out. You like-like me.”

Sans pressed a kiss to your cheek and sighed. “I suppose I’ll just have to declare it to the world, then. Since the secret’s out.”

“I have some news about that,” you said conspiratorially. “I like-like you, too.”

“Does this mean we’re going steady?”

“I think it does,” you said. Then, you turned your head to catch his in a deep kiss. "Am I allowed to say it now?" you asked. It took a second, but you saw the moment he realized what you were talking about. He chuckled, so you took that as permission.  “Happy third anniversary, babe,” you said. “I, uh, left your present at home.”

“I think that this present is quite enough for me,” he said. “The honor of being here with you, that you would go anywhere with me, that you would allow me to call you my datemate… It’s more than I ever could have dreamed growing up in SwapFell. I… I never thought I would get to have any of this,” he confessed softly. “I never truly thought we’d see the surface, that we  _ deserved _ to see it, but… And then this, a beautiful datemate who… Who like-likes me,” he said with a chuckle. “I, stars, I don’t understand how I got so damn lucky.”

Your voice caught in your throat at the raw emotion in his. He said sweet things to you all the time, but this was different. This was… You didn’t know what this was, but you desperately wanted to tell him how much you felt the exact same way.

But he continued. “I meant it, at the hotel when I told you that you never owe me anything because how could you? You’re… you’re strong and smart and have saved my ass more than once.”

“You don’t have an ass,” you pointed out softly.

He laughed again and continued. “I’ve no doubt that Mutt and I wouldn’t be…. Wouldn’t be close if you hadn’t found us. He and I… It was different Underground. And the rest of the family. They wouldn’t be my family either, not if you hadn’t gotten a hold of me.” He shifted on the bench to take both of your hands in his. “You make me a better man, and you’ve given me so much that I think I’ll have to spend the rest of our lives trying to make it up to you.”

You swallowed against the raw emotion building in your throat. “Babe,” you said softly.

“I love you so much,” he said, then leaned in and kissed you. You tried to pour all of your feelings into the kiss, how much you loved him, too, that he had actually been the one to save you, that he’d protected you and cared for you long before he even liked you as a person, furthermore like-liked you. He was your stabilizing influence, the one who kept you steady when you felt like you were drowning. The reason you had your family’s home back, that you had a job, that you learned what it meant to be in a healthy, loving relationship? It was all him, this handsome, stupid, stubborn, loving man.

But you didn’t know how to say that, not right now, so you tried to tell him with the kiss. You’d think about it, tell him when your thoughts weren’t so nebulous. You had the rest of your lives, after all, and a sweetheart suite to check out that night. For now, you simply kissed him and tried to plan your speech in the back of your mind.

-The End-


End file.
